


something's better than nothing

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Brufonse Week 2019, Denial, M/M, Medium Angst, Pre Canon, alse is angry but i dont think he knows it, anxiety attack Lite tm, friendship and loss - Freeform, verging into hurt no comfort territory but not there yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: It'd been five months since Zacharias disappeared. And if this was what Alfonse's friends wanted… if this is what they thought they needed to reassure themselves he was alright… if packing up all of Zacharias’ things and storing them was some act they had to do so they could sleep at night… then fine.Let them try.





	something's better than nothing

**Author's Note:**

> day 3 of [brufonse week 2019](https://brufonseweek.tumblr.com/post/187476678084/brufonse-week-2019) prompt **battle** / rest! finally on the archive i seem to be doing hybrids by accident i swear im not doing it on purpose. although this one is fairly off topic is i was going for battle. maybe i should just claim it was for rest. anyway.

It takes five months. Five months before Alfonse gets tired of the constant fighting, and cajoling, and _coddling, _and he agrees.

The last time he’d been in Zacharias’ room was, actually, the day before the battle. As Alfonse comes to a halt in front of the open doorway, he’s horrified to find he doesn’t remember what he’d – _they’d _been doing. Probably what they usually did when they ended up staying up late together. Reading. Laughing. Talking. Waking up late in the deepest parts of midnight because Zacharias was screaming from nightmares he’d always claimed he never remembered.

Alfonse would like to think that’s how they spent their last night together. Cuddled around one another, under the thin light little crochet coverlet Zacharias slept under. He always claimed it was too warm in the castle. Yet he'd never denied Alfonse a place by his side, all the same.

Alfonse’s hands curl as other Order members scoot pass him, and through the door. Five months since that last night. Five months, and not a word from enemy forces about a ransom. Not a word from friends about a mysterious stranger turning up. There’d been no body, but then again, sometimes people _never_ found a-

He bites back the thought. He’d heard it repeated enough these past five months, when people thought they couldn’t hear him.

_“How do you let go of someone you love?”_ he’d heard Anna talking to the stablemaster, one day. He’d thought she’d been asking for herself, but, _“I’m just…worried about him,”_ she’d added. _“We all are.”_

Fine. Fine. _FINE._ If this was what they wanted… if this is what they thought they needed to reassure themselves he was alright… if packing up all of Zacharias’ things and storing them was some act they needed to do in order to sleep at night… then fine. Let them. Let them sweep away his memories, his papers and books and shield buckles and shells, and a small blue gemstone button from their trip to Aþál, and right there, on the nightstand, the elegant oil lamp they’d been gifted for helping aid the village near áyfir. They'd turn it on when nights got too stormy and the castle seemed to rumble and nightmares just wouldn't begone. Still on the windowsill was a shining orb-stone engraved with both their Order of Heroes commissions, the orb safely tucked on top of Alfonse’s old royal dress capes, carefully folded with the clasps still as stunningly bright polished as they were when Alfonse had shrugged it off and lightly wrapped it around Zacharias’ shoulders, rain pouring down both of their faces and flattening their hair and mixing in with laughs and smiles and… and he’s crying, Alfonse is crying and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. _Gods._ What is he doing? What, by Hel_ itself,_ is he _doing?_

An OoH member has her hand on Zacharias’ blanket.

_“STOP,”_ he demands.

No one is looking at him. Everyone, in fact, is trying hard _not_ to look at him. His voice is far more hoarse, far louder than he expected. He feels like he’s been running for weeks. Even his heart is racing.

“That’s mine,” he tells her.

She frowns. “But-”

Alfonse isn’t sure when Commander Anna got here, but she _is_ here. She lays a hand gently on the woman’s shoulder.

“It’s his,” she agrees. Then she frees it from the woman’s hands, and extends it to Alfonse.

His fingers must be numb, because he can’t truly feel the delicate patterns that make up the almost lace-like coverlet. There must be something wrong with his eyes, because where the blanket is usually a pale sunshine blue, today he can’t help but see dark red specks and blood and screams.

There must be something wrong with _him,_ because he can’t breathe.

It doesn’t matter.

None of it matters anymore.

“Thank you,” he says, stiffly. “If there’s nothing else you need…?”

The sight of the gaggle of people who glance over at him sends a bolt of fury through him. Zacharias didn’t like people to be in here. This was _his_ room, no matter what they were trying to do to it.

The anger dies almost before it has a chance to exist, though. He’s tired. Gods, he’s just so tired of this.

Anna watches him, with something unplaceable in her eyes.

“Alfonse,” she says, with uncharacteristic gentleness, “you know we’re not saying he’s-”

“I _asked,_” he cuts her off before she can say it, before she can suggest it, before she can even move to _think_ it, “if you needed anything else from me.”

She stares at him for a moment. And then a moment longer. It would take effort to stop his incomprehensible tears from dropping all over Zacharias’ blanket, and he’s too tired to bother, so he doesn’t. Besides. Zacharias will, when he comes back, understand.

He always does.

Anna stares for a moment longer, then says, “No,” very quietly.

“Well then,” Alfonse responds. He reaches deep inside himself for the part of him he only brings out for court occasions, royal events, anything that means he has to stand up straight and smile and be the crown prince of Askr for the day. Unexpectedly, detaching himself takes no effort at all. And once he does it, the word feels as soft and as fuzzed out as the touch of the blanket in his hands.

He smiles politely at everyone crammed into what used to be Zacharias’ room.

“Thank you all for you help,” he says.

And before they can say anything else, he turns sharply, and departs.


End file.
